


Remnants

by kirby1205



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: A.L.I.E. - Freeform, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, F/F, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Here we go, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Lexa is dead but it isn't sad, No smut this time sorry, Post-Canon Fix-It, The Flame - Freeform, and now she's alone, but you don't really need to know anything beyond season 3, does it count as major character death if she's already dead?, except that Clarke survives Praimfaya because she's a nightblood, in the time jump between seasons 4 and 5, mentions of a handful of characters, picks up immediately after Clarke passes out from Praimfaya, this idea has been stuck in my head since May 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 14:49:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14404389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirby1205/pseuds/kirby1205
Summary: After Praimfaya, Clarke assumes the worst of the damage she took was to her body. When Lexa persistently and insistently keeps showing up in her dreams, though, she worries she's losing it. But maybe Lexa's final words to her weren't just meant to be comforting - maybe they were a promise.or: The Flame leaves a copy of itself behind in Clark's mind, and as she's dealing with radiation poisoning after Praimfaya, Clarke comes to realize Lexa really will always be with her.





	Remnants

_The deep, black emptiness of the void is surprisingly comforting. Gliding weightlessly in the silence, you're not entirely sure you'd be able to identify where the cells that make up your body end and everything surrounding begins. Perhaps here there is no such distinction. Perhaps here you just exist._

_Then there is a ripple, like a stone tossed into a still pond. It's small at first, but it gets stronger and stronger. The ripple becomes sound, becomes louder. And this sound, too, is comforting. The words are muffled, but you know the voice. You could stay here in this blissful ethereal plane and listen to this voice for the rest of eternity. You'd love that, actually. You're ready to rest._

_But the voice continues, and grows clearer and clearer._

_“Clarke!”_

 

_\--_

 

With a gasp, Clarke jerked her head off of the cool ground. The splitting pain she was met with in her skull forced her to reconsider and place it back down with a small groan. Her mind, alongside her heart, was racing. _What’s happening?_

All she really knew was that absolutely nothing felt normal. She took stock of herself. Her sour breaths came out in painful rasps. Her mouth tasted like blood. She could see her radiation suit’s helmet across the floor in her line of sight, illuminated by dim, flickering light. Everything was blurry, but she could make it out.   _Did I do that? I don't remember._ Closing her eyes, she could feel her hot skin soothed by the smooth, cold metal of the lab’s floor meeting her left cheek. Her burning hot skin. _Burns? Burns_. _Burns… Like at Mt. Weather? Radiation burns?_

_Oh._

_Oh no._

_The death wave._

Her eyes snapped open as that part of the fog in her brain dissipated. The sharp pain in her head didn't let up, though, as she slowly moved each of her limbs in turn, with new urgency. Functional. Existent. That was a start. But as she attempted to raise herself once again, she felt how deeply weakness permeated her muscles. She settled back against the floor, giving herself another moment. She pulled off her gloves, desperate to give herself something to do.

Slowly, Clarke became aware of a dull roaring in the background; up until that moment, she hadn't even realized she hadn't been able to hear anything at all. It was as if her body was coming back online, system by system. Despite that, she didn’t get the sense she’d been unconscious for long. She had no way of knowing, but still.

She slid herself carefully across the floor to the nearest wall and took her time pushing herself upright against it. Such a simple act left Clarke gasping for breath and already she was dizzier than she'd ever been. Even compared to catapulting to Earth from space. Just moments after she brought herself fully vertical, the nausea became overwhelming and she was sideways again, retching stomach acid onto the floor. She let her head drop back down, too tired to hold it up any longer.

Curled up into herself, Clarke made an effort to stabilize her shaky, labored breathing and clear her head. _Deep breaths… In through the nose. Out through the mouth._ She closed her eyes and willed herself to fight the instinct to hyperventilate. Everything still felt wrong about her body. She needed her mind at least to return to working order.

In the relative quiet between her breaths, she realized she could hear another set of raspy breaths coming from very nearby.

_Is there someone else alive here?_

_But I saw the rocket… Did not everyone make it in?_

_Why does the breathing sound like it’s coming from above me?_

Clarke slowly rotated her head upwards and opened her eyes, letting out a choked yelp at what she saw. _Lincoln_. His face was bloody and his eyes were wild, as if he were once again a reaper.

Clarke’s mouth opened in a silent scream, but her scramble to get away - fruitless, as she didn’t even make it off of the ground - resulted in such pain that she passed out once more.

 

\--

 

When she regained consciousness, the lab was silent and though the light was dim, it was no longer flickering. She still had a pulsing headache, but her brain felt less cloudy than it had the first time she awoke. Remembering what she had seen immediately prior to passing out, Clarke closed her eyes again. _Lincoln is dead. You know this, Clarke. You weren’t there, but you know this. He’s not here. He’s not a reaper. It’s the radiation. It’s the radiation. It’s. The. Radiation. Don’t let it mess with you._

Despite her internal pep talk, Clarke’s heart raced as she opened her eyes. No Lincoln. On the ceiling above her instead was a dark ventilation grate. She could hear both relief and sadness in the sigh that then echoed about the lab. All sorts of things would have been wrong had Lincoln truly been there, but Clarke knew she could use help. And Lincoln was one of many she wished she could bring back to life.

She knew that the nightblood experiment must have worked, since she’d woken at all. Nightblood was what saved Luna once upon a time, allowing her body to handle the radiation that killed the rest of her people; Clarke would have to hope the same would be true for her now. However, she also knew she had taken a hit of a different scale than Luna had, and so this one was wreaking a different kind of havoc on her body - and mind, apparently.

Raising herself once again to lean seated against the wall, this time she was able to swallow down the nausea that passed through her. Emboldened by this, and anxious about what was happening in and around her, Clarke held onto the wall as she slowly and unsteadily rose to her feet. The ground began to spin again, but between the pain in her head and the burning pins and needles that she felt over every square inch of her skin, she was determined to make it to something soft on which to sleep.

With no balance and her senses still haywire, the trip from where she woke into one of the side rooms was not among her most graceful. As she stumbled her way along, reaching out for support to the railings and desks along the way, she tried not to panic. She could smell the acrid stench of her burnt flesh - it seemed like her sense of smell was the first fully back online. _Wonderful_. Aside from the noise she was making and a faint ringing in her ears, she could hear nothing, which she hoped signaled the passing of the burning edge of the death wave rather than something more catastrophic happening to her body.

But she saw the blisters forming on her hands, and could only assume the rest of her skin - under the suit or not - was in some similar state. Maybe catastrophic would be better than she should hope for.

Sense of time all but obliterated, it may have taken Clarke minutes to get to the couch on which she let herself fall, or hours. Her body no sooner hit its surface than she was unconscious once again - though this time from falling asleep or passing out from the pain, it was impossible to tell.

 

\--

 

_She’d know those green eyes anywhere. They gazed at Clarke with such intensity that she almost felt the need to look away. It was the kind of look that said, “I can see you for absolutely everything you are.” There was no hiding._

_Clarke looked down at herself, suddenly self-conscious and thinking she must look gruesome. Yet there was nothing amiss. No burns, no marks, nothing to suggest the trauma she knew she’d been through._

_“Clarke.” Lexa spoke softly, exhaling the name, almost as if in disbelief. Clarke rose to her feet, and took a few cautious steps toward her. She looked radiant, as if it were still that fateful day when they had bared their souls to one another in the glowing light of a tranquil afternoon. Respite, in the midst of chaos._

_Lexa’s eyes glistened as she closed the remaining distance between the two. They embraced simultaneously, holding on as though they’d float away if they didn’t._

_Clarke inhaled deeply and paused to enjoy the comfort of Lexa’s scent. Clarke knew this was a dream, and it certainly was not the first dream she’d had wherein Lexa was the starring figure. She sniffled, and felt Lexa’s arms hold her even closer, even tighter. She’d had many dreams of her over the months since Lexa’d been killed. Some were more difficult than others - reliving the shooting, trying in vain time and time again to keep Lexa alive. Some were kind and good, like this one. Some were visions of the future Clarke had once held as possibilities._

_Back then, both she and Lexa knew it was likely they’d never get to have their “someday.” The realities of their situation made that fairly obvious. But Lexa was a future that Clarke had longed for, and so despite logic telling her that it’d never happen, her heart had told her to hold on and work for it. She had a feeling the same had been true for Lexa. And she also had a feeling that, given the chance, they’d both have truly tried their best to make it a reality. But surprise, surprise - they didn’t get that chance._

_This dream was different, however. For the first time in all of these dreams, Clarke knew as it was happening that it wasn’t real. Held in Lexa’s embrace, she remembered everything that had happened - the tumult, the heartbreak, the moments of joy._

_The two of them stood there, letting time pause for them in a way it wasn’t able to in their lifetimes. Enjoying each other, free from the demands of their people. Lexa pulled back, tucking a strand of hair behind Clarke’s ear. “I missed you,” she breathed out, and Clarke’s breath hitched in her throat in response. A quivering smile and closed eyes came as a reply while Clarke let her forehead fall to rest against Lexa’s._

_“I missed you, too.”_

 

\--

 

When Clarke came to again in the lab, it was completely silent and still aside from the rattling of her breaths. Her mouth was bone-dry. She held her head as she gingerly sat up, hissing a sharp intake of breath when different areas of her burned body came in contact with the couch upon which she had slept, and immediately thereafter began coughing to clear her troubled lungs and throat. Her hand came away with dark mucus.

She felt fear begin to bubble in her stomach. She was still in a great deal of pain, a pain and discomfort she couldn’t liken to anything she’d ever experienced before. But as the cloud of sleep wore off and she began to shift uncomfortably between the burning of her skin, the pounding of her head, and the discomfort in her airways, she could almost _feel_ her nightblood cycling through her veins, metabolizing the radiation bit by bit.

Yet still, her head sunk to her hands, elbows on her knees; even though her body seemed to already be recovering, Clarke knew the truth of her predicament. Very likely, she was the only person alive on the surface of the earth. A surface that had also likely just been charred beyond recognition. Perhaps death would have been more merciful.

In one smooth motion she lifted her head back upright to let it fall limply backwards against the couch cushions, closing her eyes and trying to escape back into the dream she’d just woken from. A faint smile broke even as a small tear fell down her cheek, stinging slightly against her wounds. _God, I really do miss you._

Clarke sighed. She’d accepted that she wasn’t going to get Lexa back, not that that made it any easier. And Niylah was a great support and stable partner in her own right, whom Clarke did feel lucky to have on her side. She could only hope that the underground bunker was keeping Niylah and the others were safe. But out of Clarke’s many, losing Lexa was still the open wound that hurt the most.

 

\--

 

Clarke woke slowly, again, to an unbearable itchiness across her whole body - still entirely covered by her radiation suit, she quickly realized. Her hands shook as she summoned the energy to prop herself up and strip herself of the suit. She lasted only long enough for the suit to be piled at her feet before she found herself retching once again on hands and knees. Clarke took the path of least resistance and let herself sink to rest against the floor, chest heaving from the exertion.

She’d dreamt of Lexa again. It was a very short dream, but this time, Lexa had been far more pragmatic; she’d instructed Clarke to try to find water to alleviate the pain of her burns, as well as to help her body heal itself. She knew it was the right move.

Impatient to get moving, Clarke brought herself to her feet, grimacing and swearing under her breath. But then she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and almost lost her balance once again. The blisters she could see on her hands covered her face as well. In fact, they probably did indeed cover a majority of her body if the pain was anything to go by. She’d expected as much, but seeing it was something different. She swallowed down the fear and replaced it with her usual tenacity.

 _Water. I need to find water_.

Clarke took small, careful steps, a few at a time, to head toward the main lab space. She squinted, trying to stabilize her vision, then paused as she caught sight of red pooled on the desk table and spotting the floor.

Involuntarily, her hand came to her mouth, remembering the blood that had so recently spilled from the assault of radiation on her body. But she only allowed herself to stop for a moment before she blinked with intent, returning to the determined expression she so often wore since crashing to Earth.

Clarke only stopped again as she reached the railing overlooking the rest of the lab. She’d seen the death wave, and understood the destruction it must have left in its wake. For there to even be any lights on in the lab at all indicated the presence of a backup generator - a backup generator somehow safe from the wave’s destruction - but who was to say how long that would last. Even then, would the pipes even work after all that had happened, should the electricity be enough?

Then she saw it. To the side of the lab, the giant bath of ice water Raven had prepared for her self-directed science experiment. Granted, at _least_ a couple of days since Raven had stopped and restarted her heart, the water was no longer chilled. But it was sure to help Clarke’s increasingly agonizing burns.

She took as deep a breath as her injured lungs would allow, gritted her teeth, and started on her way.

 

\--

 

Days passed in fits and starts as Clarke continued to spend time in and out of consciousness, doing her best to survive the assault the radiation was waging on her body as well as the damage it had done to the world. If not for the technology of the lab, she would have had no sense of the amount of time that had been passing. Not that, she noted bitterly to herself, anyone was around to hold her accountable to any sort of timeline.

Her friends had not taken all of the rations that they had found in the lab. Most of them, yes, but not all. Maybe they hoped she would survive somehow and need them. Likely, they ran out of time or room to take them.

Eating was not pleasant. She had no appetite. Food hurt going down, and then it hurt coming out no matter from which end. Only after a few days did her stomach settle. She could tell more and more of the radiation poisoning was clearing out of her system.

Her wounds were beginning to heal too, though the cloud of black that would puff away from her skin when brushed against was disconcerting. The burns were severe, yes - _but clouds of dead skin flying off? Really?_

Most unsettling, however, was on the fourth day since she could keep track when she found she no longer had any resistance when running her fingers through her hair. She could only stare, mouth agape, when she came away with handfuls of her defining golden locks.

With everything that had happened to her in the year - more or less - she'd been on the ground, she really couldn't have cared less about her hair or her physical appearance. But seeing her hair falling out wholesale into her own hands, knowing the cause of it, knowing that no one else could have survived the surface as she did, her hands began to shake. She felt the tightening of her chest and the quiver of her lip just a moment before her tears began falling to wet the hair in her hands.

Clarke let herself stay like that for some time. In a way, she was mourning the life she'd once had, the life she once hoped to find, and the life she was about to face alone. And as she sat on the cold floor in the sterile lab, she truly felt alone.

 

\--

 

She wouldn't say she was recovered after the first week, but she was on the right track. Clarke appraised herself in the glass reflection. No hair, most areas of skin either scabbed over still or bright pink from having recently sloughed off their scabs, cheeks gaunt as her body worked overtime with less food to feed it. Her skin no longer overly warm to the touch, and no more chills to accompany what she had presumed to be fever.

Between her time on the Ark and on the ground, Clarke was no stranger to rationing. She used water for what she needed, but she wasn’t sure how long she would be stuck in Becca’s lab, nor what the world would look like when she could surface. The lab was keeping the worst of the radiation out, but Clarke wasn’t about to assume that the death wave had yet fully dissipated. And she wasn’t ready to take another hit of radiation if she could avoid it.

She sighed, dropping herself down horizontally onto a couch in the side room, tossing something metallic up into the air - _something_ , she mused idly to herself _, that once upon a time was probably useful, maybe even a technological marvel_ \- and catching it as she lost herself in her thoughts.

There was little else to do at this point than think. For the first time, perhaps ever, she had no responsibilities, real or self-imposed. Here, all she could do was heal, engage in her basic bodily needs, and wait. Of course for Clarke this meant a whole lot of worrying.

She’d kept having dreams of Lexa. Almost every time she slept. They felt insistent, in a way she’d never before experienced. It was less like her subconscious engaging in scenarios, and more like the dreams were forcing themselves into being in reaction to each of her worries.

It started out simple. Lexa would appear looking as she did at one point or another in life. They’d exist together in comfortable silence. The uneventfulness of these was almost remarkable itself.

After a few days full of frequent naps, the dreams became a little more involved.

When Clarke had been worried about her wounds becoming infected; _Lexa bounced around the field, full of childhood’s energy. She was tailing an older man with a basket on his back, stooping over this flower and that flower, picking only after careful deliberation. He chuckled and grabbed the toddler, who squealed in delight as he pretended to put her in the basket as well. “Nodotaim, nodotaim!” she demanded, as he set her down. He paused, comically postured with one hand on a hip and another on his chin, exaggerating his pondering for her benefit. It worked; she giggled. “Okay yongun, but first you have to win a game. I’m going to show you three plants. You tell me which one does what I say.” He smiled to himself as the child, chubby-cheeked and full of character, immediately nodded and put on the most serious face she had. “Okay, which of these…. helps you sleep?” he asked, arranging a root, a flower, and a leaf on the ground. Lexa squatted on her heels, pointing at the root without a second’s hesitation. “Good! But that was too easy for you.” He playfully flicked her nose with his finger, earning an indignant, cross-eyed huff before he distracted her with his next question. “Which of these,” he replaced the three with three moss samples, “do you put on a cut so that it doesn’t get worse and make you sick?” This one caused her to stare for probably a good ten seconds before her face lit up and she pointed excitedly to the one in the middle. “That one, that one! It’s the really soft one!” Proud, he whisked little Lexa up into his arms. “You’ll make a fine healer if you decide to follow my footsteps someday.”_ As Clarke woke, she’d have sworn she could hear Lexa’s giggles echo about the lab. And she realized she woke smiling.

When Clarke had spent a full hour concerned about the fate of her friends in space; _Anya’s face loomed large overhead, Lexa groaning in a puff of dusk before she scrambled, all arms and legs, to her feet. “Come on, now. You can do better than that Lexa.” Lexa’s jaw twitched as she squared back off against her older and larger mentor. She flew at Anya, who deftly maneuvered to the side, sending the fierce not-quite-yet-pre-teen skidding past her. “I could have tripped you, or caught your neck with a weapon, or stabbed you in the back from here. Don’t leave yourself vulnerable!” Anya then moved toward Lexa, ducking a punch and immediately sweeping Lexa’s legs out from under her with her own. Once again, Anya towered over a winded Lexa, but this time she let out a smile and offered her her hand. “You’re learning, don’t worry. And once you can control those limbs of yours they’ll be a great asset. Now let’s go eat, and see if a certain pretty girl might be hanging around our table again today.” She smirked as Lexa fell into step beside her, flushing a deep pink and grumbling under her breath._

When Clarke thought back over the time she’d spent on the ground, the decisions she’d had to make; _Lexa sat on the ground, Clarke’s head cradled in her lap, stroking her hair. “Clarke. I know it bothers you. Do you want to talk about it?” She was met with silence and then a sigh before Clarke whispered, “I will. But not yet. Let’s just stay like this.”_

And when Clarke thought of the bunker, of her mother, of Niylah; _There was Lexa, the Commander, book in hand on the couch in her bedroom in Polis. But her face was light, her eyes bright, and she was not alone. Another woman stretched out the opposite direction on the couch, also reading, the pair’s legs intertwined. The woman chuckled softly as she caught Lexa, who immediately retreated again behind her book, sneaking a glance at her. She nudged Lexa’s shoulder with her toe, and the head poked back out, warm and contented smile in place._

 

——

 

Clarke was suspicious. It had been a full two weeks since she’d stumbled, blasted by radiation, into the lab. Her body did seem miraculously healed by the nightblood - scabs gone, hair growing back, no more coughing to try to clear her lungs of mucus. Yet the dreams - the dreams whose specificity and detail she had attributed to the radiation’s delirium - were not changing.

She looked down at the white radio in her hands. It was the same one that had failed before she’d been able to say her goodbyes to her mother in the bunker. She had no reason to think it’d work now. But she needed to try, she needed to… Well, to do what exactly, she wasn’t sure. Talk with someone? Air out what was going on in her head? Not feel alone?

Clarke held down the button, but said nothing for a good twenty seconds, unsure where to even begin. She looked up and out to the lab beyond the glass walls of the room she was in, tapping her foot, trying to draw inspiration from something. Eventually she sighed, and just let words come. No one was hearing them anyway.

“Hey, Bellamy… It’s been two weeks since the rocket took off for the Ark. I hope you made it. You’ve got Raven, though, so your chances were as good as anyone could hope for.” Her voice grew tighter. “Or maybe I didn’t get the signal through and you’re all dead.” She dropped her head and touched the radio to her forehead before continuing, falling onto her back and exhaling up toward the ceiling as if looking upward might help the message get to its destination.

“Who knows. Maybe I’m the last human alive. Maybe you didn’t make it to the Ark, maybe the bunker was breached under the weight of a collapsing Polis and irradiated. Maybe everything we did to survive will end with me wandering around a scorched planet until I die of hunger or thirst or insanity.

Bell, I might already be starting to lose it. I was alone a lot after Mount Weather, but you know I made that choice. Now… Now I feel like praimfaya may have done something to me. I dream wild dreams every time I sleep. I see things there’s no way I could know about, but they feel so _real_ and _true._

And Lexa… she’s almost always in them. I mean, she’s not the only one - I’ve seen my mother, and you, and Octavia, and Finn, and Raven, and Wells, and my dad, and everyone else I love in one dream or another. I think my brain is trying to keep me company. But more often than not, it’s her.”

Clarke chuckled darkly, before continuing. “I know you didn’t exactly like Lexa. But I also know you know I loved her. And she… Maybe my brain is really making a special effort with her, because it truly feels like she’s with me. Hell, her last words to me--” She stopped herself as she realize she’d bolted back upright, emotions taking over.

Clarke closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment and trying to maintain control. Would talking about that, thinking about that, never get easier? Since shutting down A.L.I.E. and saying that final goodbye to Lexa, she’d put up a pretty good front for the most part. Sometimes she almost convinced herself she’d be okay. But god, other times it felt like the sadness would surge over and engulf her. She swallowed the lump in her throat, clenched her teeth, but a tear managed to slip out. Followed by another. And another.

“Her last words to me were that she’d always be with me. And I know it’s not possible, that she was just trying to make me feel better, but it really feels like she is here.” Clarke was losing her composure now, vulnerable in her solitude, and her words began tumbling out of her through her sobs.

“And I feel like I’m going crazy for that and I don’t know how I can survive here on my own and it’s going to be five years before I see anyone again even if I survive that long and I just… I just don’t know what to do or how to do it and I need help.” Her voice grew louder and louder and body more rigid as she worked herself up, grief turning into raging despair. “But I’m on my own and I almost wish I had just died from the radiation instead of being stuck here, too goddamn stubborn to end it myself.”

The handset clattered across the table as Clarke tossed it away, burrowing her head into the couch cushions while her emotions tore their way through her body. Her cries echoed about the silent walls of the lab, calming eventually to sniffles and coughs. Rolling over onto her back, she stared at the ceiling, mind so emptied that she found herself able to feel the tear tracks on her face drying bit by bit.

_Did that help?_

 

——

 

“You are right, _Klark_.” Lexa’s quiet voice drifted across the short distance between them. It was summer, and they were laying on their backs in the grass, feeling the light breeze waft over them as they listened to the nearby stream gurgle. It was the kind of beautiful simplicity of Earth that Clarke had dreamed of from space but, upon arriving, had been too preoccupied to appreciate.

Clarke let her head roll to the side, grass poking at the side of her face, looking at Lexa. “What do you mean?”

Lexa swallowed but maintained her gaze to the sky and took a deep breath. Lexa being nervous made Clarke nervous. “What you said to Bellamy. Part of it, at least.” Lexa finally looked at Clarke. “I meant what I said. I really am here with you. I _will_ always be with you.”

Clarke furrowed her brow and looked back up at the sky herself, breaking their eye contact. She didn’t say anything at first, her mind racing. She desperately wanted to believe that was true, but of course Lexa would say that to her in a dream of her own making. But then again, these dreams were self-aware. They were different.

Clarke looked back at Lexa who, ever patient, was still watching Clarke and appraising her reaction. Clarke, fearful of succumbing to whatever delirium her solitude was provoking, knew she needed to be a bit defensive. At least for now. “How? How can that be true? Make me believe that makes sense.”

Lexa nodded, almost like she expected that reaction, before sitting up, lithe arms draped over bent knees. “You did not believe me when I said that death is not the end, or when I told you that the spirits of the Commanders visited me in my dreams. You did not believe me, until you saw the Flame yourself and then took the Flame inside you. You experienced the City of Light, you saw me, you met the first commander. Then you understood.”

Clarke stayed lying in the grass and staring up at the sky. She knew if she looked at Lexa as she spoke, she’d break and believe anything Lexa - _her brain?_ \- told her.

“The Flame works by linking itself to its host’s consciousness. A copy, syncing at all times, is stored in the Flame. That way, when it is moved to the next host upon death, their predecessor’s full life experience, as well as those of all previous Commanders, is passed on.

But a copy is also downloaded into the individual’s mind. Nightblood is what facilitates this transfer. Nightblood also allows the host to engage that stored copy to draw upon the wisdom of those who came before, should the past Commanders decide to share.

That is the Flame’s protocol - copy itself to the host’s mind for their use, and then devote itself to uploading all incoming experiences to the database with itself for future Commanders.

Before you, _Klark_ , no one had voluntarily removed the Flame and left a copy in a living former host… and we didn’t know what would happen once the nightblood had left your system. But it seems that it is only the syncing process that kills a host who does not possess nightblood. So removing the Flame spared your life, though without nightblood you could also no longer engage the copy of the Flame that had been left behind in your mind.”

Here Lexa paused, and Clarke could feel her gaze upon her, searching her for a reaction. Clarke kept her face still, but she knew her heart rate and rapid respiration would give her away. _Could this really be true?_

Lexa’s voice grew softer, somber, more like she was talking to herself. “I told you I would always be with you, and I meant it… But I did not believe that you would ever have a way to engage the Flame again even should you survive. I did not believe we could speak.”

Clarke sat up, careful to continue keeping her expression even. Hearing Lexa say things like that, and so gently, threatened to drown her in emotion. She shook her head lightly instead and grasped onto the technical, the inconsequential. “So the Flame copies itself within its hosts… and leaves itself behind. My mother and Raven were dealing with A.L.I.E.’s remnants from having the chip fried out of them. Related at all?”

Lexa nodded slowly. “Yes. The coding being left behind in their version was a mistake, but part of the code that allowed that eventually morphed into how the Flame _intentionally_ functions. One of the Flame’s upgrades from A.L.I.E.” Met with silence, Lexa looked over at Clarke, who was staring at the sky but obviously lost in her thoughts.

“How can all of this be real? How can you know any of this?”

Lexa smiled that half-smile to herself which, since Costia, only Clarke had been able to summon. “I know this because Becca Pramheda knew this. All the Commanders are in here, not just me. But for them all to appear to you all at once would be unnecessarily chaotic. Now that I’m here, with full access to the Flame’s data, I know not only what I was told but also everything of the other Commanders. But they are aw--- ”

Suddenly Clarke was sitting bolt upright in the lab and gasping for breath, abruptly trading the serenity of nature for screaming alarms and flashing red lights. She jumped to her feet and ran out into the main lab. There, flashing on all screens, was the warning: OXYGEN LEVELS LOW. AIR QUALITY CRITICAL. RESTORE VENTILATION SYSTEM OR EXIT TO GROUND.

Clarke just stared for a moment before it hit her. _Oh shit. The lab wasn’t radiation-proof so we shut off the ventilation system. It lasted me two weeks, but... Raven did it and I don’t know how to undo it._

She looked back and forth between the computers and the hallway leading toward the lab’s exit. Clarke knew either choice was a risk - the radiation from outside versus suffocation. Mount Weather’s great struggle versus the Ark’s doom. _Wouldn’t that be something. Dying, after all this time, to the exact thing that doomed life on the Ark and brought them to the ground in the first place._

Fingers clenched around the metal of the railing, grounding herself, Clarke made her decision and spun on her heel toward the exit staircase. _The radiation didn’t kill me the first time, and I’ll be damned if I let myself suffocate to death._

But she came to a pause once actually at the exit, taking the final steps gingerly as if the door might bite her itself. She listened carefully for anything beyond but heard only silence.

The world may no longer have been roiling in torment, but that didn’t mean beyond the doors would be any kind of safe. She also knew, though, that her rations would only last so long even if she got the air started again; whatever was in the air would still be in the air whether the doors opened today or in a week or two.

She squared her jaw and stood up straight, but her hands shook lightly and her stomach was turning. Her body betrayed her anxiety even as she tried to block it out, so she swallowed and made her move.

The door opened with a pungent gust, revealing a wasteland suited to tales of post-apocalypse. The air stung her throat and made her eyes water, but otherwise Clarke felt more or less like normal. _For now. A good start, I suppose_.

Still, Clarke stood rigid in the doorway, hand on the frame. There was no sigh of relief. The sky was orange and clouded. All vegetation, all signs of life, gone. Parts of the ground were even still smoldering, as if venting the smoke straight from hell itself.

She could only stand to look for a few moments before she turned her back on the fiery hellscape and left the door ajar as she walked back inside. Suddenly, she was exhausted. The world hadn’t killed her yet, but she had no clue how she was going to keep surviving with no planet left to survive within.

 

——

 

Sleep eluded her. She wanted more than anything else to return to the conversation that had been interrupted. But Clarke knew she was too wound up by the adrenaline of the alarms and opening that door, and her mind too active thinking about her conversation with Lexa. She groaned as she completed her third full restless rotation on the couch, arm and leg limply dangling over its edge.

She let herself slide off onto the floor, petulant in a way she hadn’t been since childhood. She was frustrated. But then she sighed, tapping her balled-up fists to the ground a few times before rising with new determination.

The ground was again theoretically survivable, at least for her. The bunker, secure and safe it may be, would soon not be. She’d found no additional consumables since the very first few days, no more reserves of water, and knew better than to think she could stay there forever. She knew she’d have to risk it and venture out, or she’d die there when her supplies ran out.

Plan decided upon, Clarke went right to it, circling the lab and collecting on a workbench all of the items she thought she might want to take with her. Her rations, the radio, various tools and potentially useful items. Clothing from a side room’s closet. _Maybe Murphy’s bunker has more clothing and liquid, if I can get to it. Or at least bottles of some kind so I can take what’s left of the water with me._

_Maybe the rover is still intact somewhere._

She worked like this for hours, fashioning a backpack, scavenging throughout the whole lab, dividing items into groups of importance - what she would take along now, what she’d come back to get if she found anywhere else to go, and so on. With each echo of her footfalls, she was content in working toward a goal.

Her mind never stopped working, either. She thought through the things Lexa had told her and shown her so far. She was inclined to believe it was all true. It made sense. Maybe her nightblood would save her mind as well as her body.

Time passed and, finally, she had worn herself out enough for sleep. After this, she’d be ready to go to Murphy’s bunker, and face a burning world. _But first_ , she thought to herself as she drifted off under the sterile lab lights, _I need Lexa_.

And then there was Lexa, and there was Clarke, both sitting on the edge of Lexa’s bed. Clarke didn’t hesitate before throwing herself into Lexa’s arms, unable and unwilling to fight the urge to sob that overwhelmed her immediately. Lexa let herself be knocked backward, eyes wide, but recovered her wits quickly and returned the embrace, nestled in among the furs. A mess of limbs.

Clarke had surprised herself. Seeing Lexa and knowing that this was _Lexa_ brought back all the emotions she’d worked hard to bury. And indeed the emotions came roaring out.

Her cries held the pain of Lexa’s death, of navigating her duties while mired in grief, of desperately protecting the Flame from destruction, of losing Lexa again in the City of Light. The pain of surrendering the Flame, _surrendering Lexa_ , to Roan for politics.

They echoed the sorrow of finding comfort in someone else, but even that person knowing that her thoughts always returned to her lost love. Of being so lucky as to find someone who didn’t hold that against her but still not being able to give that someone her heart fully in return.

For the first time in a long while, Clarke let herself feel again. And there in Lexa’s arms, she was letting all of the pain go.

Clarke’s cries abated when she felt Lexa’s body start to shake alongside hers. She raised her swollen face to see Lexa, eyes closed and biting a lip, struggling to hold herself in. For a moment Clarke was stunned, then she smiled to herself. _Even here, she tries to be strong._

She raised a hand to Lexa’s face, running her fingers gently over her jawline much as she had when they reunited in the City of Light. Her touch broke Lexa’s last wall, allowing the tears to fall; Lexa face her own demons, her own fears and trials and emotions. They had both fought hard, and could now be weak together.

Eventually both quieted down, the tingling lightness of a needed cry flowing through their bodies. Without a word, their eyes met and told their tales of love, comfort, and appreciation of each other.

Neither would have been able to tell who had initiated it, but in unspoken agreement their lips came together. It was slow and heavy, unlike any other kiss they’d shared. It was full of all of the words and all of the emotions that had piled up since the very day they had met, all-consuming.

Lexa spoke first after they separated, breathily. “You believe me.”

It was a statement, not a question. Clarke nodded. “Maybe it’s all in my head, but I do.”

“It _is_ all in your head, _Klark_ ,” Lexa chuckled. “But that does not mean that it is not real.”

Clarke propped her head up on her palm, taking it all in. There they were, the two of them, again on Lexa’s bed and with nothing else in the world to worry about in this moment. She raised her fingers again to Lexa face, tentatively touching the soft skin as though Lexa might evaporate into mist if she pressed too hard.

“I started to get to see you like this, Lexa. This version of you. Walls down. You seemed almost happy.” She glanced around the room. “Like when we were here, and I drew you. And again when I kissed you. Do I really get the chance to love you like this?”

Lexa nodded with a smile and sought out Clarke’s hand with her own, lacing their fingers together and resting their hands on her hip. Clarke nudged the edge of Lexa’s shirt up so she could rest her fingers on her love’s skin, and Lexa squeezed her hand appreciatively in response. “Though all in the Flame are Commanders, we were also people. Here I can just be Lexa. I rarely had that privilege in life. Here, we can love in peace.” Clarke’s gaze softened. She felt a certain warmth knowing she had gotten to know _Lexa_ , when being herself as opposed to the Commander had been such a rare freedom.

Clarke leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Lexa’s lips again, then cocked her head. “You said all of the other Commanders are in here too. When I kiss you, am I kissing them all?”

Again, Lexa chuckled softly - a sound, Clarke thought, that could easily become her favorite. She tightened her hold on her hand. “Yes and no. They are all aware of what is happening, but they are not here. This is just me. All of us are aware of everything you see and do, just as they were aware of what I experienced in life. They’ll manifest themselves to you at some point when they feel their guidance is required. But they also know what it means that we can be together and are letting us be.”

Lexa suddenly looked stricken and broke their eye contact. Her voice became apologetic. “Once you became a nightblood and the coding re-engaged, we also gained access to all of your memories since Ontari’s nightblood left your system.”

Clarke waited a moment for Lexa to continue, but she didn’t. She nudged her, nestling closer. “What’s wrong with that? Are you embarrassed?”

Lexa turned back to Clarke, brow furrowed. “No. I… I’m sorry. I’ve caused you such pain. I feel responsible.”

Clarke kissed Lexa again, overwhelmed by her affection for the secretly tenderhearted warrior. “I can’t quite seem to keep away,” she murmured, smiling, before shaking her head to refocus. “You shouldn’t be sorry though. We have this second chance.” Clarke dropped her face to rest her forehead to Lexa’s. “I have you again. I’ll be damned if I don’t fight for us to make good use of the opportunity.”

“I have seen what you’ve seen, Clarke. Survival will be a challenge.”

Clarke shrugged, and this time it was Lexa who broke a small smile and couldn’t help but kiss her cheek. Clarke smiled in return. “I’ve survived plenty so far. You and I, and the other Commanders, will figure out a way. When it’s safe for everyone else again, we’ll find them.”

She laid herself back down on the soft blankets, pulling Lexa to rest on her chest. The two fit together perfectly and easily, movements in sync as if they’d never been apart. Lexa sighed contentedly as she settled her ear over Clarke’s heart, listening to its strong and reassuring beat. Each relaxed into the warmth of having the other.

_You live within me now, Lexa. For as long as I’m breathing, I have you. We’ve got our “someday.” Let’s make it last._

Their world was quiet and serene and all they’d ever really wanted.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Got it done before season 5 aired!
> 
> I've had this headcanon since I watched the whole show for the first time in like 3 weeks last April. I don't care what flashbacks they show in season 5, I refuse to believe Lexa isn't in there with Clarke. 
> 
> Did some searching back in the fall and didn't find a fic with this plot so I figured I may as well give it a go. (I DID eventually find a cool one though that's kind of the reverse of this by ethiobird - a version of Clarke living with the Flame in the next Commander's head and she and Lexa getting their happily-ever-after there. Seems we had related ideas about how the Flame might have worked!)
> 
> Meant to be a one-shot but might add more at some point maybe. I'm not actually really a writer so who knows. Lololol last time I wrote a fic was probably a decade ago when I was like 13 writing SasuNaru stuff, so...
> 
> Anyway, hope this idea makes someone else besides me happy too! Come say hi on tumblr if you want. https://clexaaddict.tumblr.com


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